Who Allowed You to Touch My Watch?

Kowloon Streets

The once-bustling neon nightscape had now turned into a living hell.

There were no flames, no smoke. In their place was a despair-inducing purple corruption. Streets, skyscrapers, signs, even fleeing crowds—all became jet-black crystals the instant they touched that dark energy, becoming part of the Dark Dimension.

"We're too late."

The sparks from the portal died out in midair. Mordo looked at the scene before him, the Wand of Watoomb hanging limply from his hand, his eyes filled with despair.

The Hong Kong Sanctum had collapsed, leaving behind nothing but ruins.

And amid the rubble lay a familiar figure.

Wong.

The diligent librarian was covered in blood. A black crystal spear had pierced through his chest, yet he still clutched a broken mystical artifact tightly in his hand. His eyes were wide open, but the life had already left them.

"Wong!" Mordo rushed over and dropped to his knees beside the body. His trembling hand reached out, only to meet cold flesh.

"It's all over."

Kaecilius stood atop the Sanctum's ruins. Behind him, a massive dark vortex had completely covered the sky. On the other side of the dimensional rift, a gigantic purple face capable of devouring planets loomed in and out of view, looking down upon this ant-like world.

Dormammu.

"Earth now belongs to the Dark Dimension. Time has lost all meaning here. Life shall attain... eternity."

Kaecilius spread his arms, reveling in the influx of dark energy. Cracks across his skin glowed purple.

"Eternity, my ass."

Jiang Li looked at Wong lying amid the ruins. He remembered the librarian who stubbornly upheld the rules even while listening to Beyoncé, remembered the way he bobbed his head around the library.

A nameless fury flared up from the depths of his heart.

"Gwen, protect Mordo and Master Ancient One." Jiang Li stepped forward, placing himself before everyone.

"What are you going to do?" Gwen could feel Jiang Li's presence changing. "That big guy—Dormammu—looks a hundred times harder to deal with than Ultron! My Spider-Sense is screaming!"

"He said time has lost its meaning?"

Jiang Li raised his wrist. The Omnitrix dial began spinning wildly, emitting a shrill alarm. It was roaring as it analyzed the laws of time at full power.

"In this universe, as long as I'm wearing this watch, time... is mine to command."

He abruptly selected the golden hourglass icon, his gaze blazing with fervor.

"It's Hero Time!"

Golden light surged. The deafening crash of enormous gears locking together exploded like thunder, instantly drowning out the howling of the Dark Dimension.

Chronosapien—Clockwork!

A massive golden mechanical body stood amid the ruins. Inside the transparent glass casing on its chest, countless intricate gears began spinning backward at a speed beyond the limits of physics.

"Time... rewind!!"

Jiang Li's—Clockwork's—deep mechanical voice, as though it came from the end of time itself, resounded across the sky.

An emerald-green ripple of space-time erupted from him, blasting outward in every direction!

A miracle happened.

This was not a local repair, but a massive reversal across the entire district!

Fragments of collapsed buildings flew back into place against gravity. Shattered neon lights reassembled and lit up again. The road that had turned into black crystal shed its darkness and reverted to asphalt.

Most shocking of all—

The spear in Wong's chest pulled itself out. His wound closed, his blood flowed back, and his entire body seemed to "spring" up from the ground like a film playing in reverse, returning to the stance he had held before the fight!

"What is..."

Newly resurrected, Wong stared blankly at his surroundings, still holding his hands in a blocking position. "Didn't I just die? And why does the background sound like it's playing backward? Who's singing backward?"

"This... this is impossible!"

Mordo watched the scene, his pupils contracting violently. Compared to his earlier despair, the terror in his eyes was now even greater.

"This violates the laws of nature! Jiang! You're tampering with time! You're rewriting life and death!"

"If the laws of nature demand that good people die and let that madman have his way, then I'll change those damned laws!"

The gears in Jiang Li's chest spun hard enough to throw sparks. The Omnitrix's energy was being depleted at an alarming rate.

"He's reversing the Sanctum's destruction!" Kaecilius panicked as he felt the power flowing into his body slipping away. "Stop him!!"

"Kill!!"

The remaining fanatic followers charged forward.

The situation had become extremely bizarre and chaotic.

The background was playing in reverse: collapsed buildings were restoring themselves, flames were shrinking back, and flying dust was settling to the ground.

But the battle flowed forward: Kaecilius's men charged ahead, while Gwen and Mordo had to protect Jiang Li as he cast his spell amid the backward-flowing time.

"This feels disgusting!"

Gwen shot out a strand of webbing, only to find it sucked back into her web-shooter by the reversing time before it could stick to an enemy. "It's like fighting inside a washing machine! Every law of physics is messed up!"

"Forget the rules! Guard my back!"

Jiang Li could not move. He had to maintain this vast reversal of time.

Just as the Sanctum's ruins had been restored halfway, the enormous dark vortex began to be forcibly squeezed out of Earth's atmosphere.

Dormammu was enraged.

"Insignificant insect!!"

The purple giant face in the sky let out a roar. A beam of pitch-black energy ignored the backward flow of time and blasted directly toward the immobile Clockwork!

"Jiang!!" Gwen cried out.

"Can't dodge..." Jiang Li watched the destructive beam approach as the gears reached their limit.

At that moment, a golden figure stepped in front of him.

Master Ancient One.

Her hands formed complex seals. The massive Shield of the Seraphim expanded to its utmost limit, forcibly receiving Dormammu's attack.

Boom!!

Ancient One was sent flying backward by the impact, a trace of blood spilling from the corner of her mouth. But she looked back at Jiang Li, her eyes full of encouragement.

"Keep going... drive it... out!"

"Roar!!"

Jiang Li roared as the winding key above his head spun madly.

"Get the hell... back!!"

"Buzz—!"

The final pillar returned to its place. The Hong Kong Sanctum was restored!

As the Sanctum reassembled, the magical barrier protecting Earth instantly restarted. A massive golden dome rose up like a giant hand and viciously shoved Dormammu's Dark Dimension away!

"No!!" Kaecilius stared at the sky in despair.

The darkness receded, and the neon lights came back on. It was as though nothing had ever happened.

Jiang Li reverted to normal and collapsed to the ground. Black smoke rose from the Omnitrix; it had clearly overloaded completely.

"We... won?" Wong touched his chest, confirming that there was no hole and that his heart was still beating.

Yet the giant face in the sky had not vanished completely.

Dormammu was stuck in the dimensional rift, glaring fixedly at Jiang Li. Its immense malice nearly crushed Jiang Li's consciousness.

"You... thief of time. Do you think this is over? I possess eternity. I can wait."

Dormammu's voice echoed in Jiang Li's mind.

Jiang Li struggled to his feet, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and raised his wrist. Though the Omnitrix had overloaded, the madness in his eyes had not faded. Instead, a vicious grin belonging to a "hacker" spread across his face.

"Dormammu, don't you like eternity?"

Jiang Li raised his middle finger at the sky.

"In this dimension, time is linear. Everything dies—even the universe dies."

"If you dare come in, I'll force your data stream, which has no concept of time, onto my 'time server.'"

Jiang Li patted his watch. It had no power left, but he could not lose in terms of momentum.

"I'll implant a core virus into your Dark Dimension—[entropy increase]."

"Imagine your so-called eternal body beginning to age, rot, rust, and die... Imagine watching your own time begin counting down. How do you think that would feel?"

Dormammu's giant face visibly froze for a moment.

For a creature beyond time, "death" and "aging" were the most terrifying viruses. And the time-manipulating power Jiang Li had just displayed proved that he might truly be capable of doing it.

"...Madman."

Dormammu let out one final unwilling roar.

It was afraid. To preserve its "eternity," it chose to retreat.

The dark vortex rapidly contracted, dragging Kaecilius and his followers into the Dark Dimension with it—as the price of their failure, they would become mindless puppets and suffer eternal torment.

"No! Master, save me!" Kaecilius screamed as his twisting body was sucked into the void.

The sky finally cleared completely.

"Whew..."

Jiang Li plopped down on the ground and looked at the restored bustling streets of Hong Kong, as well as a passerby buying fish balls in the distance. Because time had been rewound, the passerby had no idea what had happened and only felt as if his eyes had blurred for a moment.

"Boss, give me a skewer of fish balls. Extra spicy."

Jiang Li called weakly into the air, trying to ease the tense atmosphere.

"You..."

Mordo walked over and looked at Jiang Li, his expression incomparably complicated.

There was both relief at having been saved and deep fear and rejection of the power that had reversed life and death.

"This violates every doctrine. Death gives life meaning, and you... broke it." Mordo clenched his fists, his nails digging into his flesh. "There will be a price."

"A price?"

Jiang Li glanced at Wong in the distance, alive and breathing heavily, still looking utterly confused.

"If I'm the one who pays the price, and Wong gets to live long enough to eat breakfast tomorrow and keep listening to his Beyoncé."

Jiang Li smiled. Though his face was pale, his eyes were bright.

"Then this deal... is a bloody steal."